Paint Your Dragon Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also by Tom Holt

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Tom Holt was born in London in 1961. At Oxford he studied bar billiards, ancient Greek agriculture and the care and feeding of small, temperamental Japanese motorcycle engines; interests which led him, perhaps inevitably, to qualify as a solicitor and emigrate to Somerset, where he specialised in death and taxes for seven years before going straight in 1995. Now a full-time writer, he lives in Chard, Somerset, with his wife, one daughter and the unmistakable scent of blood, wafting in on the breeze from the local meat-packing plant.

  For even more madness and TOMfoolery go to: www.tom-holt.com

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  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © Tom Holt 1996

  Cover illustration by Lauren Panepinto. Cover copyright © 2012 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First US e-book edition: September 2012

  ISBN: 978-0-316-23322-4

  Also by Tom Holt

  Expecting Someone Taller

  Who’s Afraid of Beowulf?

  Flying Dutch

  Ye Gods!

  Overtime

  Here Comes the Sun

  Grailblazers

  Faust Among Equals

  Odds and Gods

  Djinn Rummy

  My Hero

  Paint Your Dragon

  Open Sesame

  Wish You Were Here

  Only Human

  Snow White and the Seven Samurai

  Valhalla

  Nothing But Blue Skies

  Falling Sideways

  Little People

  The Portable Door

  In Your Dreams

  Earth, Air, Fire and Custard

  You Don’t Have to be Evil to Work Here, But It Helps

  Barking

  The Better Mousetrap

  May Contain Traces of Magic

  Blonde Bombshell

  Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Sausages

  Doughnut

  For LESLIE FISH The best of all of us

  and JONATHAN WAITE Who has all the talents Except one

  CHAPTER ONE

  Once upon a time, long ago and far away, there was a great battle between Good and Evil. Good was triumphant, and as a result Humanity has lived happily ever after.

  But supposing Evil threw the fight ...

  And supposing Good cheated ...

  He stepped off the plane into the belly of the snake; the long, winding tube thing they shove right up to the cabin door, so that newly arrived foreigners don’t get a really close look at dear old England until they’re through passport control and it’s too late.

  He didn’t actually have a passport; but he explained at the barrier exactly why he didn’t need one, and so they let him through. In answer to his polite enquiry, they told him, ‘Britain’. They even urged him to have a nice day, which was rather like imploring petrol to burn.

  Down the steps he went, into the baggage hall. The carousel was empty and the indicator board expressed the view that the luggage from Flight BA666 might be along in about half an hour, maybe forty minutes, call it an hour to be on the safe side, provided always it hadn’t got on the wrong plane by mistake; in which case, it was probably having a far more exotic holiday than its owners had just returned from, and would probably settle down over there, adopt new owners, and lead a much fuller, richer life than it could ever have had in a damp, miserable country like this. He read the board and smiled indulgently. Then he concentrated.

  The first item to roll out through the little rubber flaps was a big, old-fashioned steamer trunk. He looked at it, head slightly on one side, pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘Smaller,’ he said. The trunk went round and disappeared.

  Next came a matching three-piece set of designer pigskin travelware, with very fancy brass locks, little wheels for ease of handling, and monogrammed straps. He shook his head vigorously, and the travelware, handles drooping with shame, made itself scarce.

  Then came a medium-sized plain vinyl suitcase, no wheels. He was clearly tempted because he picked it up and tested the weight. But it must have seemed too heavy or too bulky because he put it back again, and a moment later it too trickled out through the flaps. A similar item, more or less exactly the same except for the colour and the contours of the handle, came next, but was dismissed with a slight pucker of the lips and a small sideways head movement.

  It was followed a moment later by a simple black canvas holdall, with webbing handles and a shoulder strap. He looked at it, nodded and picked it up. He unzipped it; it was empty. When he zipped it up again, it was full. He looked around until he saw the exit sign and walked on briskly. Needless to say, the Customs men didn’t even seem to notice him.

  Before leaving the airport, he went to the men’s toilet to brush his hair and see what he looked like. He hadn’t had a chance to look in a mirror or a pool of water since he’d died, and although he was determined to spend as little time as possible in this poxy runabout Lada of a body, a certain human curiosity came with the hardware. He stepped up to the mirror.

  If he’d been expecting a disappointment, he was disappointed. They don’t advertise the fact, but the Heathrow men’s bogs house the world’s last surviving scrying-mirror, an antisocially cunning piece of kit which treats appearances with the scorn that Mercedes salesmen reserve for people who live in council houses, and lets you see yourself as you truly are. Back in the heroic past, no self-respecting wizard stirred out of doors without one; it was the only way to filter out all the gods disguised as mortals, princes masquerading as frogs, wolves in grandmothers’ clothing and other pests which made the Dark Ages such a wretchedly fraught experience. This particular example now belongs to the syndicate who hold the airport’s duty-fre
e concession. It’s linked to the video surveillance system and makes it possible for them to spot a mug punter before he’s even checked in his luggage.

  He saw a huge shape. If you love understatement and have just had your soul repossessed by the finance company, you could say he looked a bit like a lizard; except that lizards are generally smaller than, say, Jersey and don’t have enormous wings, and even naturalists (who get paid for loving all of God’s creatures) tend to look at their faces and think immediately of their spouses’ relations. The face in the mirror, on the other claw, was beautiful in the same way that weapons and warships and violent electric storms over the sea at sunset can be beautiful.

  The dragon clicked his tongue impatiently. He’d seen that before. More to the point, that wonderful, dangerously attractive shape he was looking at had been significantly dead for thousands of years, ever since one George de la Croix (alias Dragon George Cody; better known to divinity as Saint George) had kebabbed it with a whacking great spear. One day, probably quite soon, he’d get another dragon body and look like that again; right now he was wearing a standard K-Mart two-leg, two-arm, pink hairless monkey costume - the equivalent of the cheap grey suit they give you when you’re demobbed or let out of prison - and he wanted to see what he looked like in that. He turned to the next mirror along and saw a human male, powerfully built as humans go, medium height, longish dark hair and short, clipped beard with grey icing, and round yellow eyes with black slits for pupils.

  Ah well, he thought. If you wear off the peg, you’ve got to take what you get. He was no expert in human fashions - in his day, nearly all the humans he came across wore steel boiler-suits with helmets like coal scuttles, and that was a very long time ago. It would probably do, until he got the dragon outfit back. And then, of course, everything would be different anyway.

  Once outside he raised a hand, whereupon a taxi drew up and opened its door. That was, in fact, a curious occurrence in itself, since the last thing the taxi driver could remember was turning left out of Regent Street and swerving to avoid a right-hand-drive Maserati. He also had a notion that he’d had a passenger on board. Evidently not, for the cab was empty.

  ‘Where to?’ the driver asked.

  ‘Licensed premises,’ he replied. Then he threw his bag onto the back seat and climbed in.

  The driver, a Londoner, didn’t actually know of any pubs in the Heathrow area, and confessed as much. His fare replied that in that case, they could learn together. ‘Just drive around,’ he suggested, ‘until we see something I like the look of.’

  And so they did. They’d been cruising up and down lanes for maybe half an hour when he suddenly leaned forward, rapped on the glass and said, ‘That one.’

  ‘You’re the boss.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Having explained to the driver exactly why he didn’t actually owe him any money, he waved him goodbye, shouldered his bag and crunched up the path to the front door. The landlord of the George and Dragon was, at that precise moment, asleep in bed - it was ten past ten in the morning, and yesterday had been a late darts night - so he was more than a little confused when, about one second after the doorknocker crashed down on its brass anvil, he found himself in the bar, fully dressed, shooting back the bolts.

  ‘Morning. You open?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘That’s fine. Large whisky, please, no ice.’

  The customer had a fine thirst on him; ten large whiskies, one after another, appeared to have no more effect than airgun pellets fired at the side of a battleship. Ah well, thought the landlord, obviously a very lucky man. ‘Another?’ he suggested.

  ‘Please,’ the customer replied. ‘What’s that one with the green and black label?’

  The landlord peered. ‘Bourbon,’ he replied, stating the brand name. ‘A hundred and five proof,’ he added.

  The customer smiled. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘That’s what I call fire water. Make it a treble, and have one for yourself.’

  Just as the customer said it, the landlord realised how much he needed a drink at precisely that moment. He reworked the optic, mumbled ‘Here’s health,’ and knocked back the glass, the contents of which did to his head what Guy Fawkes wanted to do to Parliament. ‘Good stuff,’ he croaked.

  ‘Not bad, I suppose,’ replied the customer. ‘Same again.’

  It occurred to the landlord that it would only be polite to make a little conversation, and he asked the customer what line of business he was in. It seemed that he’d inadvertently made a joke, because the customer grinned.

  ‘Let’s see,’ he replied. ‘Let’s say I’m a flier.’

  ‘Pilot, you mean?’

  ‘Sort of.’ He felt in his top pocket, extracted a cigarette, drew on it heavily and exhaled. The smoke seemed to fill the bar.

  ‘Civil or military?’ the barman asked.

  ‘Bit of both. What’s that colourless stuff in the bottle with the red label?’

  ‘Kirsch.’

  ‘Treble of that, then, and next I’d like to try the other colourless stuff with the green label.’

  ‘That’s Polish vodka, that is. Hundred and forty per cent proof. Beats me,’ the landlord went on, ‘how something can be a hundred and forty per cent anything. I thought a hundred per cent was the limit; you know, like a hundred out of a hundred?’

  Not long afterwards, the customer got up, thanked the landlord, and left him musing on three points that were puzzling him. Probably because his head was still glowing from the bourbon, he couldn’t quite get a handle on any of them.

  One; how come the man who had just left had managed to put away roughly ninety-seven centilitres of spirits in ten minutes and still been able to breathe, let alone walk jauntily out of the front door with no apparent impairment of his motor functions?

  Two; the reason he had given for not paying had been utterly convincing, fair and square, no problems whatsoever on that score, but what had it been, exactly?

  Three; just how in hell had he been able to smoke for five minutes without actually lighting the cigarette?

  Bianca Wilson had first made her mark on Norton Poly-technic when she suddenly stood up in the middle of a class and put her clothes on.

  Ignoring the comments, she then stepped down off the platform, took possession of the vacant easel and proceeded to paint a breathtaking still life of three herrings and a typewriter ribbon. After that, there was no question of mucking about with application forms; not only was she in the class, she was its star pupil. When asked what had prompted her to make the change from model to practitioner, she replied that it was warmer and you didn’t have to keep still.

  Sculpture proved to be her true medium. She stripped away marble as if it was cellophane wrapping to reveal the always implicit statue beneath. Once she’d learned the basics of the craft, such as how to sharpen a chisel and the best way to avoid clouting your thumb, it was obvious that there was nothing more that Norton Tech could teach her. Accordingly, she thanked them very much, gave up the day job by the simple but eloquent expedient of telling the office manager what he could do with it, and spent her last ten pounds on a ticket to London. She travelled, of course, in the guard’s van; it had taken five porters, the conductor and three gullible Royal Marines to get her luggage on board, and the Spirit of World Peace had to make the journey with her left leg sticking out of the window.

  Small-town girl in the big city; well, so was Joan of Arc, not to mention Boadicea. A talent like Bianca’s is always hard to keep hidden, particularly when its manifestations are ten feet high and weigh close to a ton and a half. It took the proprietor of the Herries Street Gallery, stepping off the train at Paddington, fifteen seconds to recognise true genius when he saw it, three quarters of an hour to hire a suitably heavy-duty lorry, and six weeks of humiliating negotiation to get Bianca’s signature on a contract. The rest is art history, with cross-references to economics, accountancy and business studies.

  Thus, when, about eighteen months later, Birmi
ngham City Council was playing third time lucky with the design of the city’s celebrated Victoria Square, and the Kawaguchiya Integrated Circuits people came across with a six-figure garden gnome fund, there was only one possible choice; provided she would agree to do it. For a very long fortnight she considered the offer; any subject she liked (except, added the city fathers, World Peace, because you do tend to get just a wee bit carried away on that particular theme, and we need a bit of space in the square for buildings and stuff) and as long as she liked to do it in, all the rock she could handle plus, of course, the immense satisfaction of helping gild Europe’s most fragrant lily. Could anybody refuse an offer like that? Apparently, yes.

  The city fathers faxed Kawaguchiya Integrated Circuits, tactfully suggesting that the two in their original letter must have been a misprint for three. KIC, thinking wistfully of the sixty acres of Tyseley they’d set their hearts on, faxed back their confirmation. Bianca accepted.

  After careful consideration, she had narrowed the choice of subjects down to two. One of them, she told the Council, was the Industrial Revolution raping Nature, with side friezes of captains of industry through the ages suffering appropriate torments in Hell. Did they want to hear the other choice? No, Ms Wilson, that’ll do fine. No, the other one will be just splendid, whatever it turns out to be.

  To their amazement and relief, it turned out to be Saint George and the Dragon. Nobody could guess why, least of all Bianca Wilson.

  After leaving the pub, he strolled for a while along the quiet, winding road. He had much to think about.

  Well, it sure was good to be back. The shape; well, it was limiting, not to mention uncomfortable and intrinsically silly, but he’d be rid of it soon enough and then he’d really be back. He swung the holdall by its handle, and smiled at the clanking of its contents.

  England; not that he’d seen very much of it, but probably enough for his purposes. Lots of trees, he observed. Haystacks. Fields of waving, sun-ripened corn. Thatched cottages. Perfect. It was a wonder the United Nations hadn’t made them tie a label on it saying Highly Inflammable. A lorryload of straw bales chugged past him and he grinned.